It wasn’t even noon when his shaky hands grabbed the last of his supply and threw the two glittering stones down his throat as if they could fulfill his every wish. Rushing ecstasy coursed through Shyryk’s green veins, sending a high through every fiber of his body like how the gods must feel.

Teeth sharpened, muscles bulged, and lust for more grew. It wouldn’t be long before he could ascend to a Hobgoblin—yes—not long before the whole valley would pay homage to him, and anyone who dared not show him the necessary respect would be cruelly punished, just as he had been.

“What are you doing, darling?”

Shyryk felt a chill run down his spine. Why did his mother always have to show up just when he practiced his pose for world domination?!

“Oh, you,” Shyryk sighed, defeated, and turned around. “Nothing at all.”

Grynk watched him with suspicious eyes. Her navel-revealing clothes, hidden by a blue painted apron one of Shyryk’s brothers gave her to keep her pregnant belly clean while working.

With a sway of her hips, Grynk shifted her weight, changing the supporting hand under the baby. “Have you been out at night again?”

“No!”

“Then where do the bags under your eyes come from?”

“Uh. Nightmares.” Shyryk grinned helplessly, fingers fidgeting behind his back.

Grynk eyed her son deadpan. “I told you not to go outside at night. What if you—”

“Cross paths with someone you can’t beat . . .” Shyryk finished, rolling his eyes. He knew best about his weakness even without her hinting at it. All the more reason he had to collect more glittering stones.

Grynk scoffed with the faintest hint of a blush. “Anyways.” She turned and moved to the ladder. “Come down and help me prepare lunch.”

“But, Mum . . .”

“Hey.” She spun back and pointed a finger at him. “If you're big enough to fight alone at night, you're big enough to help make dinner. Got it?”

“Yes, Mum . . .” Shyryk followed his Mum through the tree house, shoulders slumped. She could have at least knocked. The last rungs of the ladder wobbled slightly, so Shyryk jumped off, leaving their remaining durability for his Mum until Dad exchanged them.

Speaking of which, Ghuthulu worked on the floor, repairing the plank Bleg had cracked yesterday. Same height, same frame, same pointy ears—Shyryk had always wondered why his Dad hadn’t ascended already, but his answers were so vague and abstract.

“I don’t get it,” Shyryk thought. “Why would Dad stop loving Mum? Mum would remain the same, after all.”

Shyryk passed his Dad in the small hallway, fetching him the hammer he had built for his twelfth birthday five months ago. It was about time he thought of something to gift him for the thirteenth next month.

“Thanks, buddy.” Ghuthulu spun the tool and sank a pointed stone into the plank. He didn't let it show, but he missed their old home. No matter how hard he tried, he could do nothing about his dry, shriveled green skin. He had lived by the sea for too long. But even if they traveled back, the distance was too long for his old bones.

Grynk dropped the woven basket of dead bats on the kitchen shelf and called Shyryk back to the task. They discarded the wings for now and prepared the bodies. Unfortunately, whoever had slain the bats had taken their glittering stones. Perhaps a bear searched for a new cave but found the way to the river with its precious fish too far in the end.

—

Outside, running around trees, Slox and Bleg played with their makeshift spears. Shyryk had taught them himself, so it tickled him the wrong way he had to tell them dinner was ready.

“Help yourselves while the food is still warm!” Grynk said, rasing her deformed fork. Everyone already drooled over the lovely smell of meat, the children fighting if you had the right to claim a piece by having looked at it first.

“I don't want to disturb your meal,” a voice called from behind. “So let's get this over with quickly and answer my questions.”

The Goblin family froze. Ghuthulu glanced at his children. They were all here. And his wife right beside him. He slowly turned, dropping his cutlery at the sight.

A human stood at the entrance—a young human speaking perfect Ghukliak without a hint of an accent. Who taught him? Did Goblins raise him?

“Have you ever been to the village nearby?” the boy asked. He was barely Ghuthulu’s height, and gauging from his voice, male—meaning still a child.

The boy eyed the family, hands buried in the pockets of his black pants, the ends cut to fit the length of his legs.

“Don’t tell me you also have your own language?” His shoulders slumped with a sigh. “Well, whatever. I’m gonna see for myself or ask the next ones.”

He took a step toward the family, drawing a dagger.

“Wait!” Ghuthulu stood protectively before his family.

The boy’s gaze narrowed. “So you do understand me? Well then. Answer my questions, and I’ll spare you.”

“W-what questions?” Ghuthulu asked. The previous question had left his head.

“What about the village?”

“We keep away from it.”

“How many Goblins are here?”

“We’re a family of five.”

“Yeah. I know. I mean, how many Goblins are here in the area?”

“Urgh.” Ghuthulu gulped with his dry throat. “Perhaps about three more families.”

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“Oh—last one already, huh?” the boy said casually. “Tell me then, where do you come from?”

He gulped again, this time turning into a cough. “We traveled from Varuna. There's a Goblin Tribe near the coast.”

“The West? Hm. And your Tribe . . . has it some kind of treasure?”

“Treasure?”

“Yes. An object of great value. Maybe you don’t know it, but it can spawn you.”

“Spawn. Us?”

“You over there. What do you know?”

“Nothing. I swear!”

“You’re not good at swearing, are you? Tell me.”

“You’re searching for the Beget. But—it’s not a treasure, you fool. It’s one of the Seeds.”

“Oh? You know more than I expected. Are you a direct descendant from the chief’s lineage?”

Ghuthulu grunted. “What about it?”

“Nothing. Just surprising, as you’re not a Hobgoblin . . . ah.” The boy glanced at Grynk, mustering her. “I get it. That’s why you moved out here instead of staying with your tribe.”

“What is he talking about?”

“Not even you know? Oh well.” He shrugged. “None of my concerns. I’ll get going then. Have fun explaining yourself to your family.”

The boy’s eyes swept over the Goblin family one last time, a frown distorting a short, weak smile.

In the silence, a drop of sweat plopped on the wooden floor. Ghuthulu clenched his fists, side-eyeing the hammer on a small shelf.

“Shyryk,” Ghuthulu looked over his shoulder, smiling. “Look after your brothers.”

“Dad? Wait—”

Ghuthulu dashed with fast steps his sons had never seen before. After all, he had always held back while sparing. The floor cracked beneath his feet as he came to a halt, converting his momentum into a massive strike.

Turning at the noise, the human took the blow straight to the head, catapulting him through a wall. Wood exploded, and splinters scattered, the human flying out of the tree house.

Ghuthulu stepped to the edge, looking down to check on his victim, when he saw nothing but grass on the ground.

A sigh sounded above, and Ghuthulu finally noticed the flapping of wings. He looked up.

“I really would have spared you and your family.” The human—no—this creature hovered in the air, bat wings protruding from his back.

“I can’t let you leave.” Ghuthulu fought against his banging heart. “I may have left the Tribe, but there ain’t no way I turn my back on them in the face of danger.”

The winged human frowned. “How annoying. You make me even more envious.” He struck his black wings down, seemingly leaping off the air and to Ghuthulu. “Die if you will.”

Inches to his eye, Ghuthulu blocked the incoming dagger with the hammer. Blocked, but—crashed back, slamming into the tree house’s trunk, air stuck, head dizzy. Vision blurred; he saw the incoming dagger too late and dodged delayed.

The blade pinned him to the tree like he had done with all the planks. Blood spilled from the wound on his shoulder, dripping his clothes and the floor dirty. The hammer clanked to the floor.

Shyryk cried out, his mother failing to hold him. The winged human lunged for the finishing blow, drawing a second dagger from behind his back. He arrived and stabbed. And Ghuthulu gasped in horror at the sight before him.

His oldest son stood like a true warrior. Like a hero. If only . . .

If only his head would still rest on his shoulders.

“No!” Grynth screamed, not noticing her pressing grip hurting her two remaining sons. But neither did they feel it. All they felt were hot tears running down their cheeks and the following void spreading in their chests. Everything happened so fast. Was Shyryk really dead? Just like this?

Anger dawned on the winged human’s face, growing darker and darker. “Remember”—he stepped past Ghuthulu—“you made me do this.”

The human struck at Grynth when his arm suddenly stopped moving. His sleeve slid up, revealing a muscular forearm. He tensed, trying to rip himself free, but to no avail.

Behind him stood Ghuthulu. He held the human’s biceps in a firm grip, black steam rising out of every pore of his. And he grew. He grew past any furniture. Grew until his head creaked a dent into the ceiling. The steam slowly faded, and where the scrawny Goblin was a moment ago stood now a towering mountain of a Hobgoblin. The last bits of clothes ripped at the sheer mass and thickness of muscles. Fangs stuck out his mouth, and his wrinkles diminished.

“D-Dad?” Bleg didn’t trust his eyes. None of them did.

The boy side-eyed Ghuthulu, giving up to force his way through, and relaxed his arm. “That’s a first.”

Ghuthulu yanked the boy back, turned, and let go. He flew, crashing through another of the treehouse walls.

“Hide,” Ghuthulu growled in a low, booming voice. He went to the broken wall with heavy steps and searched for the boy hovering in the sky. However, he found no one.

“You’re strong,” a voice said from below. The boy stood on a patch of black grass, his bat wings weirdly bent and dripping to the floor. He grabbed another dagger and reached overhead to his back. And he sawed his wings off. Both dropped to the floor. He rolled his shoulders in pain, then stretched.

He staggered and buckled over. And a new pair of wings splashed out of his back, the grass behind him painted. His skin morphed and shifted, turning scales. “Come on,” the boy glared up at Ghuthulu’s new form. “Give me your power!”

Ghuthulu stepped into the air, past the last plank, and dropped down with a boom. Both approached one another, accelerating exponentially til dashing. Ghuthulu lunged back for a heavy fist. The boy shook a hand, turning all his fingers into sharp tentacles.

They clashed. Ghuthulu sank his head-sized fist deep into the human’s cheek, jaw, throat, and shoulder. Too deep. It squished and turned slimy, and while it absorbed the impact, the boy’s tentacles scratched along Ghuthulu’s chest.

The strikes and blows only quickened, while no party succeeded in landing proper hits. Blood splattered. Slime splashed.

Ghuthulu’s prowess dug his big feet into the dirt, his punches gaining even more power. A bone Snapped, clean in two, where the boy slimed it too late, and his arm flew back, sticking out at an unnaturally sharp angle. He took a devastating punch to the guts, and despite the slime absorbing most of the impact, it still sent him flying and skidding over the ground.

Both fighters panted for air. The boy slowly fell apart, slime dripping to the ground, while Ghuthulu started to feel the blood loss, his patch of grass sprinkled with an extra layer of green.

And both steadied themselves for one final attack to finish this off.

“I’m sorry,” the boy muttered. “But I can’t afford to lose.” He bent down, going into an all-four pose, strings of slime supporting his broken arm. The hair on his head and arms stood on ends and grew thicker.

Ghuthulu shook himself out of his stupor and dashed ahead. No matter what this weird human planned, he wouldn’t let him get through with it.

The boy growled, voice changing, two of his teeth growing into fangs and his eyelids turning into slits. “Die for me. Monster.” A white aura burst from the boy, and he lowered himself like a Wolf on a hunt the moment they jumped at their prey. No. Not like a Wolf—like a Hound.

Ghuthulu arrived, anticipating a move and feinting a punch to fluently transition into a kick. He succeeded. His foot hit. However, it only grazed its target.

The boy blurred past Ghuthulu, appearing behind him with blood between his teeth. He readied himself for another jump and, this time, flapped his wings down.

Whatever the human had turned into. He was simply too fast.

Ghuthulu’s vision suddenly changed, and he flew in the air, suddenly feeling light and free. He saw his family watching in the tree house, staring at something on the ground. He checked and saw his body standing on the ground, blood spurting like a fountain out of his throat. He plummed down like a dead fish, and his family faded away. Everything . . . faded away.

Progression Towards Immortality: 0,0000003%